Archive for January 24th, 2006

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks to the Sacramento Press Club, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006, in Sacramento, Calif. Schwarzenegger said that Infrastructure needs have been ignored by politicians for years in favor of flasher, immediate measures.

Voters, not elected officials, should decide whether to make California the second state after Oregon to allow doctor-assisted suicide, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Tuesday.

“I personally think that this is a decision probably that should go to the people, like the death penalty, or other big issues,” the celebrity governor told the annual Sacramento Press Club lunch. “I don’t think that we — 120 legislators and I — should make the decision..”

I DON’T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.

I’m sure I’d like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you’re wandering into a recruiter’s office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

And I’ve got no problem with other people â€” the ones who were for the Iraq war â€” supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.

But I’m not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken â€” and they’re wussy by definition. It’s as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn’t to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there â€” and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn’t going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He’s going to be looking for funnel cake.

Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren’t really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of “Laguna Beach.”

The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.

I understand the guilt. We know we’re sending recruits to do our dirty work, and we want to seem grateful.

After we’ve decided that we made a mistake, we don’t want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.

But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they’re following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff’s pet name for the House of Representatives.

I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I’m tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.

But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it’s Vietnam.

And sometimes, for reasons I don’t understand, you get to just hang out in Germany.

I know this is all easy to say for a guy who grew up with money, did well in school and hasn’t so much as served on jury duty for his country. But it’s really not that easy to say because anyone remotely affiliated with the military could easily beat me up, and I’m listed in the phone book.

I’m not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn’t be celebrating people for doing something we don’t think was a good idea. All I’m asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

During Hugh Hewitt’s interview it was revealed that the editor in charge of Stein’s piece was newly annointed king, Flap means editoral editor (overseeing the Los Angeles Times’ opinion pages), Andres Martinez formerly of the New York Times and hired lackey of Michael Kinsley.

Andres Martinez

Stein and Martinez – the DUMBASSES OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES.

Huhg Hewitt URGES readers to cancel their subscriptions to the Los Angeles Times and to NOT support Stein, Martinez, Los Angeles Times or the Tribune Company since they do NOT support our troops.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines on Tuesday to approve President George W. Bush’s nomination of
Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, moving the 55-year-old conservative a step closer toward confirmation by the full Republican-led Senate.

With 10 Republicans voting yes and eight Democrats voting no, the committee sent the nomination to the 100-member Senate. The full chamber is to begin debate on Wednesday, with a confirmation vote as early as the end of this week.

Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper his wife Laureen Teskey, along with children Ben and Rachel, celebrate his minority government win in the Canadian federal election in Calgary, Canada, Monday, Jan. 23, 2006.

Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party won national elections Monday and ended 13 years of Liberal rule, a victory expected to move Canada rightward on social and economic issues and lead to improved ties with the United States.

Congrats to fellow conservatives in the Great White North.

“Tonight friends, our great country has voted for change, and Canadians have asked our party to take the lead in delivering that change,” Harper told some 2,000 cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters in Calga

How Canadian policy will change under the conservatives:

Harper has said he would reconsider a U.S. missile defense scheme rejected by the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. He also said he wanted to move beyond the Kyoto debate by establishing different environmental controls, spend more on the Canadian military, expand its peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan and Haiti and tighten security along the border with the United States in an effort to prevent terrorists and guns from crossing the frontier.